Motherboard upgrade

Partygator

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I need some help. I'm not all that savey on this thing. I have a Pentium 3 500 speed pewter. I run two hard drives, one Cd(plextor24/10/40) one DVD(sony) a good video card and sound card. Upgraded fan and lots of ram. Most of the games today require at least 800 plus. Can I just purchase a new mother board and chip and drop them in? Say a 1.8gig. Fit okay? Will my ram plug in or do I need new model/type? Anything special you can offer in advice.
Thanks for your help.
Have a SAFE New Year.
Gator :confused:
 
If you go for a pentium 4 motherboard then you will need some new RAM but everything else should work fine.
 
Dave, Thanks. Here is what i am looking at.
2 DDR Slots 2 SDRAM Slots 2 USB ports 2 AGP Ports 1 PCI Port On board sound card on board 10/100 Ethernet Keyboard & Mouse hook up IDE Ports Support 2 Hard Drives, 2 CD/DVD, 1 Floppy 1.7 GHz Pentium 4, with fan.
This is a used set. Can get it around $100.00.
Thanks
Gator :confused:
 
Anything IDE compatable (cd-drives, DVD, harddisk etc) is ussually interchangeable (except on servers which generally use SCSI; a different connection medium) between machines and certainly motherboards of a similar age (to some extent).

So unless the motherboard is retarded, it should support your old drives, and they are fairly easy to physically install and are automaticaly recognised.

RAM is a different story, the standards are prone to frequent change, the standard at the moment is DDR (Double Data Rate), although by the looks of the mother board you are getting it may support the old standard SD. SD was standard when the P3 was late, so say maybe around the 500mhz and 800mhz machines would use SD RAM.

However, bve cautious handling RAM as it is easy to damage or more likely destroy (due to electrostatic discharge).

as far as expansions are concerned, PCI has been the general expansion standard for the last however long, it's predecessor was EISA and previous to the at half the bit rate ISA. So all expansions should be compatible, you might have had a built in graf. card in your old machine, so your NEW motherboard doesn't have an on-board graf. card, your in trouble.

Although if your old machine had an AGP graf. card or PCI graf. card then you should be able to pull it out and use it in your new machine.

Although 2 AGP and 1 PCI? I've never seen that, I have 1 AGP and 8 PCI :confused: :D :confused:

I don't know why I typed all that, anyway, I agree with Dave, just watch out for that graf. card, because if you don't, you'll get your machine together, put it on your desk, plug in your power, mouse, keyboard and then when it gets to your monitor...... :confused:

RC
 
parrallel and serial ATA

By-the way, anyone got some links that can explain the difference between Parrallel and serial ATA hardisks and then where IDE and SCSI come into play?
Thx,

RC
 
if you change your CPU and Motherboard then you'll have to change:
-RAM (your old RAM is most probably SDRAM)
-Fan (old one wont do new CPUs)
-Maybe the power supply (if old one isn't ATX)

Prices (ebuyer.com):
-Celeron 1.7Ghz = $55
-Celeron 2Ghz = $63
-Celeron 2.5Ghz = $84
-P4 1.7Ghz = $121
-Athlon XP 2000+ = $68
-Athlon XP 2500+ = $91
-Athlon XP 2700+ = $122
(all retail with fan)

P4/celeron MBs:
-ECS P4S5ADX Pentium 4 - Socket 487 - ATX - 2GB DDR-SDRAM - 533MHz FSB = $51 (should be able to keep old RAM)
-Asus Atx Mbd 845pe Fsb800-agp4x Audio Lan = $69 (a lot better but have to change RAM)

Athlon MBs:
-MSI KM2M Combo-L AMD Athlon XP/Duron, Socket A, 2GB DDR/SDRAM, 200/266 FSB = $51 (keep old ram)
-Gigabyte GA-7VAX ATX Via KT400 Socket A Motherboard 8xAGP/ATA133/USB2.0/Audio/DDR400 = $65 (have to change ram)

RAM:
-Kingston Memory 256MB 333MHz DDR PC2700 DIMM = $33

PSU:
-Enlight ATX 300W Pentium 4 Ready v2.03 = $22
-Enlight 360W ATX Power Supply P4 Ready = $28

so that's about $100+
 
Great links, thanks. I truely enjoyed reading the review made by ExplosiveLabs. I am curious though, do you think they will standardize SATA over PATA (IDE, SCSI etc)?

RC
 
I think SATA will replace PATA on all new PCs within a couple of years, but SCSI will continue to survive for longer cos it's still better for servers and that.
 
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